


My Apologies

by Paycheckgurl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Apologies, First Date, First Kiss, Kidnapper/Kidnappe relationship, M/M, Post-Season/Series 11, didn't know it was a date, live show referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-18 10:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11872023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paycheckgurl/pseuds/Paycheckgurl
Summary: Max tries to make things up to Jonah. It goes better than expected, but in an unexpected direction.





	My Apologies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speccygeekgrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/gifts).



> I got a request for Max on a first date on Tumblr. I was originally going to fill this as part of the Mystery Shipping fic. but the idea for this particular scenario came to mind and I thought this concept worked better as a standalone. Enjoy!

Max was on a mission. A mission of upmost importance. He really, really needed to apologize to Jonah. Doug McClure’s advice had been bad. Really, really bad. He hadn’t so much asserted his dominance as he had asserted the fact when push came to shove he should really, really just stick to being a pushover, and that he really, really didn’t want to see Jonah dead. Jonah was nice. And sweet. And smart. And funny. And cared when he thought Max didn’t look ok. He shouldn’t be robot chow! Max wasn’t going to stop sending him the movies of course, but Max really did need to apologize.

Max thought hard about how to do this. He had started with groveling into the video screen, but Kinga cut the feed somewhere into his eighth “I’m so sorry”, and before he could get Jonah’s reaction. Jonah’s face had been blankly confused through the sorries themselves, and Max didn’t know what kind of confused it was, or what exactly he was thinking; he definitely couldn’t tell if Jonah would accept his apology. The bots however, were pretty clear in their expressions of wanting to jump down to the moon and punch him. So, he was classing that as “didn’t really work.”

* * *

 

Step two was flowers. The bouquet was big and overly large, full of carnations and other assorted flowers (was that too cheap? Should he have opted for roses instead?). He attached a screen-printed ribbon onto it, and sent it up through the tube up to the satellite. He watched the monitor as Gypsy collected it and deposited it to Jonah, who was in the main room with the bots.

“Flowers?” said Jonah confused.

Servo picked up the ribbon. “Sorry for almost killing you with a giant metal robot. Won’t happen again,” read Servo. “A bit on the nose.”

Crow’s eyes shifted. “Well I guess he is actually sorry. Or still afraid of what Kinga might do to him. One or the other.”

Jonah sniffed the flowers experimentally, again with that hard to read, blankly confused look. “Guess so.”

Guess so? Guess so what? “Guess so I’ll accept the apology” or “guess so he’s still afraid of Kinga?”

* * *

 

Time for step three then. Step three was an assortment of chocolate truffles. Max had no idea what Jonah’s preferred chocolate and filling combo was (if he even liked filling or just preferred them hollow), so he went out of his way to make the box as varied as he could. Like with the flowers, he sent the package up, and put on the video feed to see how Jonah would react.

What he found was Crow sitting atop the table, greedily eating all the chocolates.

“Crow!” said Gypsy. “I told you not to touch that while I went to get Jonah from the fablab, not to eat half the box yourself!”

Crow’s beak was covered in mushy, half melted chocolate. Truffle wrappers were littered around in a haphazard fashion.

“But Gypsy it’s chocolate and I haven’t had any good chocolate in forrrevvvvverrrrrrr,” he whined.

“Neither have the rest of us; you could have asked and we could have shared it! You think you’re the only one around here who needs their chocolate fix?”

Jonah picked up the box experimentally.

“This was for me?” he asked.

Gypsy nodded her large head. Jonah grabbed the boxing, studying the note Max had placed on the inside. The note was smudged all over in chocolate, and Max could tell by the way Jonah grabbed it that it was sticky.

Cambot zoomed in on the note. “I’m really sorry. And I’m not just saying that because Kinga’s making me or because I incurred her wrath.  You’re cool Jonah xoxox TV’S Son of TV’s Frank.”

There. Perfect. Absolutely no ambiguity about what he meant.

As Cambot panned back to Jonah his face still had that confused expression on it, before he turned to Crow without addressing the apology at all.

“Are there any dark chocolates left?”

“I atmmmeeee alllphm thotttse,” Crow mumbled out, eating another truffle he somehow managed to grab.

As Max took a second to mentally translate that into “I ate all of those”, Jonah forcibly grabbled the box again, yanking it away from Crow and casually tossing a few of the remaining chocolates into Gypsy’s mouth.

“The dark chocolates are my favorites,” he lamented to no one in particular.

A chocolate apology where someone else eats all of favorite chocolate was a no good. It was time to kick this up a notch.

* * *

 

Max’s next move involved getting Jonah on the moon alone (or as alone as they could be). It took a good two weeks of scheming, but he managed to convince Kinga she needed to go down to Castle Forrester to get the original print of Joel’s _Eegah_ experiment so she could look into an idea for a tour she had, and to separately convince Pearl to not send her packing back to the moon immediately upon her arrival. It gave Max at least a day to work with. Maybe two if she took time to talk to the people that called and said they had an original print of _Eeagh_ itself and the others that had the weird spy/superhero movie print to work with.

The boneheads were placed in cryogenic storage (except for Terry and the one bonehead who was good on violin that Max needed). Ardy mulled around Moon 14 but kept to himself and Synthia seemed to be enjoying some alone time away from Kinga back in her room. Max took a few hours to get everything together, wiping his brow and removing the frilly pink apron he had donned once he was done. Jonah was in place on the bridge working on a crossword puzzle, and so Max brought the tube to send him down.

Jonah looked at what greeted him. A large spread of food, a fancy white tablecloth, and a set of candles. That One Bonehead (whose name or at least clone number designation Max really needed to learn), played classical music for them like if they were at a French resteraunt. The meat on the table even appeared to be something other than dinosaur.

“Apology dinner?” said Max awkwardly.

And darn it! Jonah still looked confused, taken aback even. That was not was Max was going for. Finally, Jonah spoke up, his expression changing a bit.

“Max, it’s okay, really. I know you’re sorry. You made that really clear. It’s cool. We all make dumb choices in the heat of the moment sometimes. It’s just…I have to ask. Between the flowers, and the chocolates and…this. Is this…Max is this supposed to be a date?”

And now Max was the one that looked gob smacked. Oh. Oh…he sat down at the table as his brain processed. Jonah stood standing which only served to highlight the massive height difference between the two. Max allowed his head to hang as he face palmed, barely missing embarrassing himself further by landing his elbows in the soup plate. Jonah sat down after a few more moments, and took Max’s hands into his own.

“I’m going to take that as no then?”

Max looked up and winced. Jonah looked so sincere staring him down with those big brown eyes. He hadn’t released Max’s hand from his own.

“It…wasn’t,” said Max. “Although now I feel like a total idiot for not realizing that it could totally come across that way.”

It was like he had subconsciously gone through his Hopeless Romantic checklist.

Jonah still neglected to release his hand, holding Max’s much smaller hands in his own.

“Max it’s alright. Really. And please don’t feel like you have to go overboard apologizing for this either?”

Max stared at Jonah. He really cared. And was nice. And wasn't going to hit him for being an idiot. And despite what the bots always said he smelled good. He stuttered.  “Diii….d…did you want it to be? A date I mean.”

Jonah actually blushed.

“Oh,” said Max. “It uh…it can still be. A date I mean.”

The taller man leaned in, a plopped a quick kiss on Max’s lips. “It’s a date then,” said Jonah.

_Fin._

 


End file.
